5 Ways To Invest In Yourself

The investment business is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Organizations spend millions to get your money and hope you believe their investment strategy is the best.

We are inundated with magazines, 24-7 investment channels, and investment “experts” on every aspect of the market. All of this is irritating because rarely does anyone honestly tell you the best investment decision you can make.

There is no doubt you can earn a decent return over time in a well diversified portfolio. That’s no secret. My long term money is invested in the market.

However, the best investment no one talks about is investing in yourself. Time and time again this is absolutely the best investment you can make in your life.

I’m not simply talking about taking more college courses or mandatory trainings from your employer. I am referring to making a commitment to learn new skills, improve old ones, and changing with the times.

When you make the commitment to invest in yourself, the return on investment will begin to multiply exponentially over time – similar to compound interest.

“Success Doesn’t come to you, you go to it.” – Marie Colling

At First you may not notice the payoff from the investment, but there will be a time when your growth will sky rocket.

Investing in yourself can lead to promotions at work, starting new businesses (like myself), better health, improving relationships, and much more. It is really the investment that keeps on paying dividends.

Most people go to college then believe there is no reason to learn much more. If you want to find success, you need to continue to grow.

There are three reasons why we stop learning: cost, time, and laziness. Since I know the people reading this article aren’t lazy, the main reasons must be time and money.

Luckily we live in the best time ever to continue our education. We have access to learning at our fingertips that our ancestors only dreamed of having.

Let’s discuss 5 ways to invest in yourself.

1. Podcasts

Most of us have a commute to work or a mundane activity we must do each week (i.e. clean the house, mow the grass, exercise, ect). Instead of turning on Pandora Radio to the 90s mix, look into Podcasts.

Podcasts are the best way to hear inspiring stories, learn new skills, or brush up on your own industry.

Jump on iTunes or Sticher and you can find topics that cover everything from business to comedy.

2. Online Courses

You can do that today because there are courses at your fingertips for no charge. YouTube is filled with great information. If you only watched Ted Talks on YouTube you would dramatically change your life.

You can take real courses from the Khan Academy. Even MIT has courses you can take for free.

If you don’t mind paying for something, then check out Udemy, Lynda.com, or Skillshare. I learned how to place Facebook ads from Udemy and it was one of the best courses I ever took (and I have my MBA).

There are also a number of courses taught by people who specialize in a particular subject. You can find some great courses on copy writing, marketing, starting a blog, and much more.

“Your life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by change.” – Jim Rohn

3. Library

Most people don’t read books because they don’t want to purchase them or don’t want to make the trek to the library. According to Zig Ziglar, 58% of all people in our society, when they finish their formal education, never read another meaningful book.

Well, it’s not your grandfather’s library anymore.

You can rent books from the library and read them on your Kindle or iPad. There is a large number of books that you can check out and have for two or three weeks.

You can also rent digital books and play them on your device of choice.

Do what most people don’t – read books and become an expert in a topic.

4. Join a Group

Maybe you’re an introvert (like myself) and want to meet more people. Then join an organization. I don’t care where you live, there are groups to join.

A few sites to check out are Meetup and LinkedIn. You can find groups to join that have local meetings.

Just in my area you can join groups that discuss blogging, business, marketing, running clubs, and more.

Also, consider looking into Toastmasters International. This is something on my list of things to do because it is a phenomenal club. Learning to speak in front of groups is a skill that everyone could improve.

5. Go to a Seminar/Conference

A great way to learn more about your industry or break into a new industry is attend a seminar or conference. Not only will you learn a great deal, but you can also meet a number of new people.

If you don’t have the money to attend a conference, then try to be in the area when the conference will be held and attend meet ups. That way you can meet a lot of new people and start to foster more relationships in the industry.

If you pick one or two of these ideas, take action, and stay committed, your investment will pay off astronomically over time.

Travis Scott, most importantly, is a husband and father of four in Ohio. In 2011, after losing a child and spending nearly a decade as a financial advisor, he decided a change was needed. Since then he found a career he loves, sold an app business, and learned what was most important in life. He also started StuffParentsLike.com where he provides tools to lead a happier & richer life for parents and teaches how he makes over $1k a month selling on Amazon part-time. You can follow Travis on Twitter @StufParentsLike.

6 Comments

I wish to add that one other way to invest in our self is to educate and nourish our mind by reading books and other helpful materials. When we read books, our mind are enlarged but it takes time and self discipline to invest in books and reading them.

All good advice. I love the ones about joining a group or attending conferences. You learn so much from other people. Wow. There are people who never read a meaningful book after college? That’s sad. I live in libraries. This made me realize I invest in myself more than I thought. Thanks!

Great stuff. I do almost all of these and my life is ever happy. Have just opened a production company for radio and TV commercials, documentaries and jingles. This has also led me to seal a deal with a big international company based in India on a joint venture agreement. I am a member of the Toastmasters International.

Trying to Build Charisma? Pay Attention to How You Speak

Have you ever listened to yourself talking and said how on earth do I sound that terrible? Most of us don`t realize they have voice issues until we accidentally listen to our voice or seek professional help. But the truth is, 38 percent of your charisma comes from the way you talk.

The more appealing your voice is to people, the more trust they`ll put in you, but the opposite is also true. Stuttering, talking too fast, not breathing properly, can ruin your charisma and make people unable to enjoy your company.

Here are a few things you can do to sound more charismatic anytime you open your mouth:

Learn how to talk slowly

Talking fast is anti-charismatic. I was a fast talker, in fact, I was the quickest talker my debate team ever had – a teacher whispered to me fifteen years ago – and it drove me crazy until I did the right thing and hired a coach. What I learned later was so simple, yet so useful, and it helped me to this day control the rate at which I speak.

First off, you need to figure out your exact rate of speech. Get an article and record yourself reading it at your natural rate for 2-5 minutes. Now, divide the total number of words you`ve read over the total number of minutes and you`ll get your words per minute count “wpm.” If your rate exceeds 175 wpm then you, my friend, are a fast talker and we need to change that.

How? Pay attention to the rate at which most people talk, especially on TV and radio. You need to get a feeling for how fast you should speak and bring that feeling into your consciousness. Next, set some time every morning to read out loud. Practice the same article/passage you started with earlier until you can hold it to +160 wpm. Once you`re okay with it, move to different reading materials.

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt

The third step is to bring what you`ve practiced to you daily life. Each day, pick one person and dedicate the entire conversation to speaking at a controlled pace. If you`re in this with someone, ask them to stop you as soon as you begin to talk faster. When this happens, stop, adjust, and get back to your controlled pace. You may feel pretentious but stay on the line. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel.

Use the power of pausing

Charisma is the mix between being liked and being equally respected. You need to convey power and you need to convey warmth both at the same time. And you can do this using two simple tricks: First, start reducing how quickly you reply to people and add more pauses to your speeches. Whenever it`s your turn to speak, pause for a couple of seconds before saying your first word. The second trick is to lower your tone at the end of important sentences to make an impact. Simply raise your voice at the beginning of the last sentence then go downhill from there.

Warm up every morning

If you have a morning routine, which I recommend you do, then you should integrate a few exercises to warm up you voice for a stronger tone and better pronunciation. This is what any self-respected voice coach will tell you.

So how to warm up? There are many things to do, some of which are:

Blowing through your lips

Blowing through tongue

Doing circles with your tongue and touching all your teeth

Yawning to exercise your soft palate

Overcome indecisiveness

You can call him wicked, morally corrupt or dishonest but how do you think Donald Trump has got his way into the White House? You can`t deny the fact that without his unbelievable conviction, the man who spends more time on Twitter than presidents of the P5 group combined wouldn`t have beaten all the odds and won the election.

The world, my friend, is a place where your ideas can mean nothing without the conviction to back them up. Hell, you can have people follow your utter nonsense and call you a leader with enough confidence and a few sharp words sprinkled on top of it. Several studies found that people follow leaders for the faith they convey not the ideas they pose, so imagine if you have both the right ideas and the rock-solid conviction in them. You`ll rock the world and bend it to your will.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

From my research, there are three ways to induce conviction in your conversations: preparation, intonation, and controlled practicing.

Preparation: Rehearsing what you`ll say before important meetings will help you sound more confident. Pick three interesting topics to talk about as you leave home, it`ll only take five minutes.

Intonation: Elevate your pitch as you stress over important words and keep it down as you finish a major sentence. Notice the difference between the following phrases: You can`t talk to me this way. You can “NOT” talk to me this way… Ever. Same words but different degrees of power. By raising your voice as you say “NOT,” you force the other person to take your words seriously. Watch CNN and see how reporters use a wide range of tones as they speak. Mimic them.

Controlled practicing: The next time you`re out with your buddies, pick a topic you know nothing about and talk about it with absolute conviction as if you`re the baddest badass of that topic. Eight times out of ten, your friends will accept your POV without much resistance. Pick-up artists use this exercise to overcome indecisiveness, and there`s nothing to stop you from using it to build your confidence.

So, where to start? Obviously, the best thing to do is hire a voice coach. They will hold you accountable and make sure you do the exercises on time. Warren Buffett still has his Dale Carnegie public-speaking certificate hung on his wall because of how it improved his life.

But what if you can’t afford a coach? Then I suggest you at least do 5 minutes of warming up each morning and set aside 10 more for reading out loud. If you can guarantee those 15 minutes every day for a year, then I’m sure your charisma will multiply.

How do you build charisma? Comment below!

It’s Not Always About the Goal, Sometimes the Journey Is More Important

There is nothing wrong in setting a goal in life in order to help manifest your vision of yourself years from now. These goals serve as a challenge so you will push yourself to do better. The only problem is when you become too obsessed with the bigger picture and you tend to forget the small details. You end up stressing out on how to get to the end that you no longer enjoy the process.

It is easy to lose sight on the most important things in life if you obsess on the bigger goal that needs to be achieved. You spend too much time planning and thinking how to move forward. You force yourself to forget everything else just because you really want to reach a goal. Take a step back and ask yourself, “Am I still happy?” “What have I missed because I was very goal-oriented?”

Eventually, you will realize that even if you have achieved the bigger goals, you have not found true happiness. It seems like you have won, but deep inside, it feels empty.

Let us take people who are traveling for instance, everyone is too busy taking photos and looking good in them instead of enjoying the sites and the entire experience. The lesson is to stop taking control of everything and savor the moment. Put the camera down and soak in the beauty of the moment.

Here are 5 reasons why the journey you’re on is more important than the eventual goal:

1. Achieving goals doesn’t mean you are successful

One of the reasons why people obsess with what the future holds is because they think that achieving goals means they have succeeded in life. By constantly doing this, you anchor your entire existence on that goal. The moment you fail in achieving the goal, you think that you are a big failure, which is not true. If you enjoy the process, regardless of the outcome, you will still feel good. You have traveled, learned from your mistakes, met people and become inspired.

2. Life is about making memories

For instance, you are running a business. You have this idea that you can only call yourself successful if you have made lots of money. Whether it is in business or in life, creating memories is more important than raking in lots of income. It is about the people you have helped by employing them.

It is also about the customers who were satisfied because you cared for their needs. It is also about how you overcome the challenges with your entire team, along with the members of your family. These moments, big or small, create great memories. Cherish them and you will be happy.

“Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.” – Rosa Parks

3. The plan won’t always be perfect

Again, there is nothing wrong in having a plan. It is great if you know where to go first and what to do next. However, this should come with the mentality that not all things will go as planned. Nothing will ever go the way they are meant to be. There are unexpected changes along the way.

The key is how you embrace things that happened not according to plan and still find meaning in them. Happiness is about going with the flow. It is about trusting that good things will surely come along the way. It is also in letting go of a rigid plan that you learn to embrace life in all its complexities and uncertainties.

The biggest problem when you are too obsessed in following a plan is that you are consumed with the idea that there is only one path. There is no other path towards success and you should stick with what you are already comfortable of. Along the way, you will feel too comfortable that you are no longer willing to take the risk.

You are too scared to step out of your current path. You don’t want to move away because you think it will derail the achievement of your goals. You are no longer excited in trying new things. Soon, your life becomes really dry and you won’t see the meaning of everything that you do.

“Step so far outside your comfort zone that you forget how to get back.”

5. It is about following your heart

Take a moment to reflect and think about the plan that you had right from the start. Is it really what you want, or are you just doing it because it is how success was defined by people around you? Delve deeper and listen to your heart.

You might be on a path that you don’t really want, but you are forced to be in. Listen to your heart’s desires and this will make you a better person. Learn how to follow your passion and let your heart guide you to the right path.

Ultimately, you will only feel happy if you know that you are doing what you really love. You will even learn how to not obsess on a goal because you are just savoring every moment in your life. You will also realize that whether or not you will achieve something really big, you will be just as happy and fulfilled.

Important reminders:

When traveling, don’t think about your social media posts, take photos for yourself and not for others. Better yet, take photos only when you have already cherished the place.

Learn how to appreciate the small things. Take a pause just to smell the fresh flowers on your way to work. Appreciate the smiles of children heading to school. Be happy that you still have a job and you have something important to do for the day.

Say thank you to people around you even for the smallest things that they have done. Always let them know just how much you appreciate them.

Create smaller goals in life. If you really cannot let go of the idea that there is a bigger plan to achieve, create smaller objectives that are achievable on a daily or weekly basis.

Give yourself time to reflect and just be quiet. Amid the bustling noise in the city or the stressful nature of your work, you still need time to take a pause and just be quiet for a few minutes each day. This allows you to enjoy the moment and look back at all the positive things that happened during the day.

Don’t be defined by one definition of success. You can always find success even in the smallest things. You must have different sources of happiness and don’t let yourself be tied up to one goal as it could be really heartbreaking should you not achieve that goal. Just be you and do what you do best.

How do you define success? Comment below as we are curious to know!

Just Failed? Lift Yourself Up With These 5 Encouraging Thoughts

Have you had a failure that made you not want to get out of bed? I’ve just come back from a public speaking contest where I was unable to make the next round. I practiced hard but was unable to come up with a satisfying message. I worked hard but it felt like my efforts were wasted.

I wanted to redeem myself immediately but knew I couldn’t. I would have to wait and live with the negative feelings for a year until the next contest. Big failures crush your self-esteem, your confidence and your drive. Your morale is depleted and you question your goals and your self-worth. Getting out of bed hurts and you don’t want to try again.

While staying in bed sounds nice, you have to get up. Even with failure stinging your heart, you have to keep moving towards the future.

Motivating yourself again is tough but here are a few things you can tell yourself to feel positive again:

1. Failure Was Bound To Happen

Everyone wants to avoid failure, but you cannot be successful without it. The road to success has a few failures, it’s unavoidable. Success is not the smooth journey people make it out to be.

Before my loss, I had been winning at other public speaking contests. I did get the feeling of invincibility, but unfortunately I knew this would not last. As much as I hate failure, it is part of life. You can’t keep succeeding without encountering failure. You were going to fail eventually. It doesn’t mean that you deliberately tried to fail, but it had to happen at some point.

“Success is measured by how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton

2. There Will Be A Second Chance

Unless you quit chasing your dreams entirely, there will always be another chance to try again. It is difficult to accept after a big failure, but deep down you know it is true. Even though I lost the contest, I knew there would be another one next year. It’s a long wait but I would be able to compete and hopefully succeed where I previously failed. Life is long enough that there are multiple opportunities to reach your goal. Things can change and you may not be facing the same landscape that you faced before, but that doesn’t mean success is gone forever.

3. There Might Be Something To Learn

As much as we like learning from our successes, our failures still have lessons they can teach us. Revisiting your failure might give you insight into why things went the way they did, and how you can stop it from happening the next time. Failed to prepare as much as you believed? Attention divided due to other issues? Underestimated the obstacles you had to overcome?

I’ve done all of these and more, which has resulted in failures that I’m not proud of. I still take a look to see what I can change next time. Looking at these mistakes and being honest with myself hurts, but it helps me learn what I can do differently. Don’t let the opportunity to learn pass you by because it’s painful to reflect. If you know there is something you can do to improve, take it as a learning experience.

4. Stop Thinking “That Should Be Me”

I should have landed that sale. I should be the one holding the trophy. I should be experiencing success instead of that person. It’s easy to fall into that line of thinking, especially if you were extremely close to succeeding. You can’t help but think you deserve success instead of failure, but this traps you in the past. It makes you reimagine your failure into success, and it feels wonderful. You want to live in that world.

It’s not a good thought to have. By believing that you should have succeeded, you’re not moving forward. Your mind will be replaying that moment, convincing you that everyone else was wrong and you were right. It’s hard to resist and you will inevitably have that thought, but success is not about thinking about what should have been. It’s about working on what could be.

5. You Are More Than Your Failures

After failing at something you put all your effort in, you can feel pathetic. You would not have failed if you were competent, if you were the person you said you were. But since you didn’t succeed, you must not be as great as you thought. Public speaking is my specialty, and I am upset when I fail. I feel that if I’m not good at my specialty, I’m a failure. If I can’t be the best speaker in the room, my entire worth as a human is non-existent.

But failing doesn’t mean you’re incompetent. Everyone fails, even the successful people you idolize. Failing doesn’t mean you’re doomed to mediocrity, it just means that you have more work to do. You have succeeded before, which means you’re not as bad as you believe. Failure is not representative of your ability. You may have to change, but you never lost your potential.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

I’ve had to live with my failures for a long time, but every time I licked my wounds and prepared myself for the next opportunity to succeed. Failure always hurts, especially if it’s big. You question your ability and your chances to succeed in the future.

The good news is, there will always be another time to succeed. Failing is part of life, it happens, but you don’t have to fail the same way twice. Learn from your failures, know that it doesn’t define your ability and get your head out of the past. You didn’t succeed today, but there’s always tomorrow.

How do you recover from failure? Comment below!

4 Steps to Help You Create Radical Momentum in Your Life

Do you ever find yourself with a goal in mind and you know the actions needed to get there, but you just can’t seem to get yourself to act on them? Positive momentum is what propels you to act effortlessly. Momentum first starts in the mind. Like everything around us, it begins as a thought and ends as a tangible success.

Implementing the following steps will not only make reaching your goal more fun, super rewarding, and easier, but it will also make the journey the best part:

1. Get yourself in a great feeling state

Whenever you want to create new momentum in a venture, the first step is always to get into a great feeling state. It is the most effective way to open up neural pathways and creativity in your mind. Humans naturally gravitate toward the subjects in their life that feel the best. Use positive emotion to saturate the idea of what you want.

That simple task will create a magnetic pull in your mind to what you desire. The most fertile place to plant the seed of this new idea is excitement! Every positive emotion about what you want waters it and helps it blossom. Meditation and breathing exercises are powerful techniques that foster the clean mental slate needed to create.

Tim Ferriss described that 80% of top performers in athletics, entertainment, and business employ daily meditation practices. Put happiness first. The best part of the process is dreaming about your destination. It’s the desire that we get the most juice. Once you get there you’ll feel like “Now what?” and a new desire will be there to take its place.

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” – Colin Powell

2. Go directly to the end goal

From a positive state, program where you desire to go into your mind. Visualize a clear destination. The clearer your mind can see it while maintaining that positive state, the more powerful the answer will light up within your brain. Inspiration comes from the excitement of mentally transporting yourself to the actualized achievement.

See it as a movie in your mind. Virtually see yourself there, feeling the positive emotions for as long as it feels good. Extensive airtime dreaming about your desire creates the momentum. Write notes as if you have what you want in the present tense. Say it as if you have acquired it already to begin conditioning your subconscious mind and emotions into the feeling of having it.

The wheels will begin turning because now your dream will have a minor physical representation of itself. This conditioning will eliminate sabotage and will instill a feeling of deservability the more it is done.

3. Appreciation as fuel

Appreciation is the greatest internal motivator. Whatever you appreciate the crap out of, you create more of. The more you dream about the desired outcome, the more compelled you will be to take action and the more often positive things will come your way. If you appreciate them, they will grow. The milestones will grow and your momentum will exponentially increase.

The inspiration for better ideas will flow to you along with far more energy to act on them. Steve Jobs said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Appreciation is the path to loving every part of the journey. Being thankful for all positive gifts coming your way will condition you to receive vastly more.

You want to keep your inner monologue pure. The more you think and talk about something, the more momentum gets created. If you create negative momentum, it will work against you. If you begin to think negative thoughts about your desired outcome, it will begin to feel like stress. When it feels like stress, you won’t feel like taking action. That’s why appreciation is so vital- it will always help you feel good about your goal making the inspired action feel effortless.

“Change your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly.” – Tony Robbins

4. Letting it go

Overthinking kills momentum faster than anything. Give yourself a reprieve; life is about so much more than your goal anyway. Letting the subject go will bring a freshness to it in return. You avoid burnout and best of all create a more fulfilling life in other areas. Guiding your mind toward completely unrelated subjects will reset and refill your mental facilities.

Give yourself peace to find the clarity necessary to make the ideal decisions. This can come in the form of working out, taking a walk, going somewhere new, or anything that stimulates a different part of you!

Part of letting it go means keeping your ideas to yourself until they are solid in your mind. This allows them to stay clean from outside influence. Let go of the need to share your ideas before the momentum is powerful. The last component is taking each action in faith that you are on the way to your desire. Because what you are seeking, is also seeking you.

What are some things you do to create momentum in your life? Share with us below!

Trying to Build Charisma? Pay Attention to How You Speak

Have you ever listened to yourself talking and said how on earth do I sound that terrible? Most of us don`t realize they have voice issues until we accidentally listen to our voice or seek professional help. But the truth is, 38 percent of your charisma comes from the way you talk.(more…)

Marwan Jamal is a fitness and health blogger at healthline.com. He’s a great fan of the gym and a healthy diet. He follows the trends in fitness, gym, and healthy life and loves to share his knowledge through useful and informative articles.

6 Comments

I wish to add that one other way to invest in our self is to educate and nourish our mind by reading books and other helpful materials. When we read books, our mind are enlarged but it takes time and self discipline to invest in books and reading them.

All good advice. I love the ones about joining a group or attending conferences. You learn so much from other people. Wow. There are people who never read a meaningful book after college? That’s sad. I live in libraries. This made me realize I invest in myself more than I thought. Thanks!

Great stuff. I do almost all of these and my life is ever happy. Have just opened a production company for radio and TV commercials, documentaries and jingles. This has also led me to seal a deal with a big international company based in India on a joint venture agreement. I am a member of the Toastmasters International.

Trying to Build Charisma? Pay Attention to How You Speak

Have you ever listened to yourself talking and said how on earth do I sound that terrible? Most of us don`t realize they have voice issues until we accidentally listen to our voice or seek professional help. But the truth is, 38 percent of your charisma comes from the way you talk.

The more appealing your voice is to people, the more trust they`ll put in you, but the opposite is also true. Stuttering, talking too fast, not breathing properly, can ruin your charisma and make people unable to enjoy your company.

Here are a few things you can do to sound more charismatic anytime you open your mouth:

Learn how to talk slowly

Talking fast is anti-charismatic. I was a fast talker, in fact, I was the quickest talker my debate team ever had – a teacher whispered to me fifteen years ago – and it drove me crazy until I did the right thing and hired a coach. What I learned later was so simple, yet so useful, and it helped me to this day control the rate at which I speak.

First off, you need to figure out your exact rate of speech. Get an article and record yourself reading it at your natural rate for 2-5 minutes. Now, divide the total number of words you`ve read over the total number of minutes and you`ll get your words per minute count “wpm.” If your rate exceeds 175 wpm then you, my friend, are a fast talker and we need to change that.

How? Pay attention to the rate at which most people talk, especially on TV and radio. You need to get a feeling for how fast you should speak and bring that feeling into your consciousness. Next, set some time every morning to read out loud. Practice the same article/passage you started with earlier until you can hold it to +160 wpm. Once you`re okay with it, move to different reading materials.

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt

The third step is to bring what you`ve practiced to you daily life. Each day, pick one person and dedicate the entire conversation to speaking at a controlled pace. If you`re in this with someone, ask them to stop you as soon as you begin to talk faster. When this happens, stop, adjust, and get back to your controlled pace. You may feel pretentious but stay on the line. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel.

Use the power of pausing

Charisma is the mix between being liked and being equally respected. You need to convey power and you need to convey warmth both at the same time. And you can do this using two simple tricks: First, start reducing how quickly you reply to people and add more pauses to your speeches. Whenever it`s your turn to speak, pause for a couple of seconds before saying your first word. The second trick is to lower your tone at the end of important sentences to make an impact. Simply raise your voice at the beginning of the last sentence then go downhill from there.

Warm up every morning

If you have a morning routine, which I recommend you do, then you should integrate a few exercises to warm up you voice for a stronger tone and better pronunciation. This is what any self-respected voice coach will tell you.

So how to warm up? There are many things to do, some of which are:

Blowing through your lips

Blowing through tongue

Doing circles with your tongue and touching all your teeth

Yawning to exercise your soft palate

Overcome indecisiveness

You can call him wicked, morally corrupt or dishonest but how do you think Donald Trump has got his way into the White House? You can`t deny the fact that without his unbelievable conviction, the man who spends more time on Twitter than presidents of the P5 group combined wouldn`t have beaten all the odds and won the election.

The world, my friend, is a place where your ideas can mean nothing without the conviction to back them up. Hell, you can have people follow your utter nonsense and call you a leader with enough confidence and a few sharp words sprinkled on top of it. Several studies found that people follow leaders for the faith they convey not the ideas they pose, so imagine if you have both the right ideas and the rock-solid conviction in them. You`ll rock the world and bend it to your will.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

From my research, there are three ways to induce conviction in your conversations: preparation, intonation, and controlled practicing.

Preparation: Rehearsing what you`ll say before important meetings will help you sound more confident. Pick three interesting topics to talk about as you leave home, it`ll only take five minutes.

Intonation: Elevate your pitch as you stress over important words and keep it down as you finish a major sentence. Notice the difference between the following phrases: You can`t talk to me this way. You can “NOT” talk to me this way… Ever. Same words but different degrees of power. By raising your voice as you say “NOT,” you force the other person to take your words seriously. Watch CNN and see how reporters use a wide range of tones as they speak. Mimic them.

Controlled practicing: The next time you`re out with your buddies, pick a topic you know nothing about and talk about it with absolute conviction as if you`re the baddest badass of that topic. Eight times out of ten, your friends will accept your POV without much resistance. Pick-up artists use this exercise to overcome indecisiveness, and there`s nothing to stop you from using it to build your confidence.

So, where to start? Obviously, the best thing to do is hire a voice coach. They will hold you accountable and make sure you do the exercises on time. Warren Buffett still has his Dale Carnegie public-speaking certificate hung on his wall because of how it improved his life.

But what if you can’t afford a coach? Then I suggest you at least do 5 minutes of warming up each morning and set aside 10 more for reading out loud. If you can guarantee those 15 minutes every day for a year, then I’m sure your charisma will multiply.

How do you build charisma? Comment below!

It’s Not Always About the Goal, Sometimes the Journey Is More Important

There is nothing wrong in setting a goal in life in order to help manifest your vision of yourself years from now. These goals serve as a challenge so you will push yourself to do better. The only problem is when you become too obsessed with the bigger picture and you tend to forget the small details. You end up stressing out on how to get to the end that you no longer enjoy the process.

It is easy to lose sight on the most important things in life if you obsess on the bigger goal that needs to be achieved. You spend too much time planning and thinking how to move forward. You force yourself to forget everything else just because you really want to reach a goal. Take a step back and ask yourself, “Am I still happy?” “What have I missed because I was very goal-oriented?”

Eventually, you will realize that even if you have achieved the bigger goals, you have not found true happiness. It seems like you have won, but deep inside, it feels empty.

Let us take people who are traveling for instance, everyone is too busy taking photos and looking good in them instead of enjoying the sites and the entire experience. The lesson is to stop taking control of everything and savor the moment. Put the camera down and soak in the beauty of the moment.

Here are 5 reasons why the journey you’re on is more important than the eventual goal:

1. Achieving goals doesn’t mean you are successful

One of the reasons why people obsess with what the future holds is because they think that achieving goals means they have succeeded in life. By constantly doing this, you anchor your entire existence on that goal. The moment you fail in achieving the goal, you think that you are a big failure, which is not true. If you enjoy the process, regardless of the outcome, you will still feel good. You have traveled, learned from your mistakes, met people and become inspired.

2. Life is about making memories

For instance, you are running a business. You have this idea that you can only call yourself successful if you have made lots of money. Whether it is in business or in life, creating memories is more important than raking in lots of income. It is about the people you have helped by employing them.

It is also about the customers who were satisfied because you cared for their needs. It is also about how you overcome the challenges with your entire team, along with the members of your family. These moments, big or small, create great memories. Cherish them and you will be happy.

“Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.” – Rosa Parks

3. The plan won’t always be perfect

Again, there is nothing wrong in having a plan. It is great if you know where to go first and what to do next. However, this should come with the mentality that not all things will go as planned. Nothing will ever go the way they are meant to be. There are unexpected changes along the way.

The key is how you embrace things that happened not according to plan and still find meaning in them. Happiness is about going with the flow. It is about trusting that good things will surely come along the way. It is also in letting go of a rigid plan that you learn to embrace life in all its complexities and uncertainties.

The biggest problem when you are too obsessed in following a plan is that you are consumed with the idea that there is only one path. There is no other path towards success and you should stick with what you are already comfortable of. Along the way, you will feel too comfortable that you are no longer willing to take the risk.

You are too scared to step out of your current path. You don’t want to move away because you think it will derail the achievement of your goals. You are no longer excited in trying new things. Soon, your life becomes really dry and you won’t see the meaning of everything that you do.

“Step so far outside your comfort zone that you forget how to get back.”

5. It is about following your heart

Take a moment to reflect and think about the plan that you had right from the start. Is it really what you want, or are you just doing it because it is how success was defined by people around you? Delve deeper and listen to your heart.

You might be on a path that you don’t really want, but you are forced to be in. Listen to your heart’s desires and this will make you a better person. Learn how to follow your passion and let your heart guide you to the right path.

Ultimately, you will only feel happy if you know that you are doing what you really love. You will even learn how to not obsess on a goal because you are just savoring every moment in your life. You will also realize that whether or not you will achieve something really big, you will be just as happy and fulfilled.

Important reminders:

When traveling, don’t think about your social media posts, take photos for yourself and not for others. Better yet, take photos only when you have already cherished the place.

Learn how to appreciate the small things. Take a pause just to smell the fresh flowers on your way to work. Appreciate the smiles of children heading to school. Be happy that you still have a job and you have something important to do for the day.

Say thank you to people around you even for the smallest things that they have done. Always let them know just how much you appreciate them.

Create smaller goals in life. If you really cannot let go of the idea that there is a bigger plan to achieve, create smaller objectives that are achievable on a daily or weekly basis.

Give yourself time to reflect and just be quiet. Amid the bustling noise in the city or the stressful nature of your work, you still need time to take a pause and just be quiet for a few minutes each day. This allows you to enjoy the moment and look back at all the positive things that happened during the day.

Don’t be defined by one definition of success. You can always find success even in the smallest things. You must have different sources of happiness and don’t let yourself be tied up to one goal as it could be really heartbreaking should you not achieve that goal. Just be you and do what you do best.

How do you define success? Comment below as we are curious to know!

Just Failed? Lift Yourself Up With These 5 Encouraging Thoughts

Have you had a failure that made you not want to get out of bed? I’ve just come back from a public speaking contest where I was unable to make the next round. I practiced hard but was unable to come up with a satisfying message. I worked hard but it felt like my efforts were wasted.

I wanted to redeem myself immediately but knew I couldn’t. I would have to wait and live with the negative feelings for a year until the next contest. Big failures crush your self-esteem, your confidence and your drive. Your morale is depleted and you question your goals and your self-worth. Getting out of bed hurts and you don’t want to try again.

While staying in bed sounds nice, you have to get up. Even with failure stinging your heart, you have to keep moving towards the future.

Motivating yourself again is tough but here are a few things you can tell yourself to feel positive again:

1. Failure Was Bound To Happen

Everyone wants to avoid failure, but you cannot be successful without it. The road to success has a few failures, it’s unavoidable. Success is not the smooth journey people make it out to be.

Before my loss, I had been winning at other public speaking contests. I did get the feeling of invincibility, but unfortunately I knew this would not last. As much as I hate failure, it is part of life. You can’t keep succeeding without encountering failure. You were going to fail eventually. It doesn’t mean that you deliberately tried to fail, but it had to happen at some point.

“Success is measured by how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton

2. There Will Be A Second Chance

Unless you quit chasing your dreams entirely, there will always be another chance to try again. It is difficult to accept after a big failure, but deep down you know it is true. Even though I lost the contest, I knew there would be another one next year. It’s a long wait but I would be able to compete and hopefully succeed where I previously failed. Life is long enough that there are multiple opportunities to reach your goal. Things can change and you may not be facing the same landscape that you faced before, but that doesn’t mean success is gone forever.

3. There Might Be Something To Learn

As much as we like learning from our successes, our failures still have lessons they can teach us. Revisiting your failure might give you insight into why things went the way they did, and how you can stop it from happening the next time. Failed to prepare as much as you believed? Attention divided due to other issues? Underestimated the obstacles you had to overcome?

I’ve done all of these and more, which has resulted in failures that I’m not proud of. I still take a look to see what I can change next time. Looking at these mistakes and being honest with myself hurts, but it helps me learn what I can do differently. Don’t let the opportunity to learn pass you by because it’s painful to reflect. If you know there is something you can do to improve, take it as a learning experience.

4. Stop Thinking “That Should Be Me”

I should have landed that sale. I should be the one holding the trophy. I should be experiencing success instead of that person. It’s easy to fall into that line of thinking, especially if you were extremely close to succeeding. You can’t help but think you deserve success instead of failure, but this traps you in the past. It makes you reimagine your failure into success, and it feels wonderful. You want to live in that world.

It’s not a good thought to have. By believing that you should have succeeded, you’re not moving forward. Your mind will be replaying that moment, convincing you that everyone else was wrong and you were right. It’s hard to resist and you will inevitably have that thought, but success is not about thinking about what should have been. It’s about working on what could be.

5. You Are More Than Your Failures

After failing at something you put all your effort in, you can feel pathetic. You would not have failed if you were competent, if you were the person you said you were. But since you didn’t succeed, you must not be as great as you thought. Public speaking is my specialty, and I am upset when I fail. I feel that if I’m not good at my specialty, I’m a failure. If I can’t be the best speaker in the room, my entire worth as a human is non-existent.

But failing doesn’t mean you’re incompetent. Everyone fails, even the successful people you idolize. Failing doesn’t mean you’re doomed to mediocrity, it just means that you have more work to do. You have succeeded before, which means you’re not as bad as you believe. Failure is not representative of your ability. You may have to change, but you never lost your potential.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

I’ve had to live with my failures for a long time, but every time I licked my wounds and prepared myself for the next opportunity to succeed. Failure always hurts, especially if it’s big. You question your ability and your chances to succeed in the future.

The good news is, there will always be another time to succeed. Failing is part of life, it happens, but you don’t have to fail the same way twice. Learn from your failures, know that it doesn’t define your ability and get your head out of the past. You didn’t succeed today, but there’s always tomorrow.

How do you recover from failure? Comment below!

4 Steps to Help You Create Radical Momentum in Your Life

Do you ever find yourself with a goal in mind and you know the actions needed to get there, but you just can’t seem to get yourself to act on them? Positive momentum is what propels you to act effortlessly. Momentum first starts in the mind. Like everything around us, it begins as a thought and ends as a tangible success.

Implementing the following steps will not only make reaching your goal more fun, super rewarding, and easier, but it will also make the journey the best part:

1. Get yourself in a great feeling state

Whenever you want to create new momentum in a venture, the first step is always to get into a great feeling state. It is the most effective way to open up neural pathways and creativity in your mind. Humans naturally gravitate toward the subjects in their life that feel the best. Use positive emotion to saturate the idea of what you want.

That simple task will create a magnetic pull in your mind to what you desire. The most fertile place to plant the seed of this new idea is excitement! Every positive emotion about what you want waters it and helps it blossom. Meditation and breathing exercises are powerful techniques that foster the clean mental slate needed to create.

Tim Ferriss described that 80% of top performers in athletics, entertainment, and business employ daily meditation practices. Put happiness first. The best part of the process is dreaming about your destination. It’s the desire that we get the most juice. Once you get there you’ll feel like “Now what?” and a new desire will be there to take its place.

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” – Colin Powell

2. Go directly to the end goal

From a positive state, program where you desire to go into your mind. Visualize a clear destination. The clearer your mind can see it while maintaining that positive state, the more powerful the answer will light up within your brain. Inspiration comes from the excitement of mentally transporting yourself to the actualized achievement.

See it as a movie in your mind. Virtually see yourself there, feeling the positive emotions for as long as it feels good. Extensive airtime dreaming about your desire creates the momentum. Write notes as if you have what you want in the present tense. Say it as if you have acquired it already to begin conditioning your subconscious mind and emotions into the feeling of having it.

The wheels will begin turning because now your dream will have a minor physical representation of itself. This conditioning will eliminate sabotage and will instill a feeling of deservability the more it is done.

3. Appreciation as fuel

Appreciation is the greatest internal motivator. Whatever you appreciate the crap out of, you create more of. The more you dream about the desired outcome, the more compelled you will be to take action and the more often positive things will come your way. If you appreciate them, they will grow. The milestones will grow and your momentum will exponentially increase.

The inspiration for better ideas will flow to you along with far more energy to act on them. Steve Jobs said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Appreciation is the path to loving every part of the journey. Being thankful for all positive gifts coming your way will condition you to receive vastly more.

You want to keep your inner monologue pure. The more you think and talk about something, the more momentum gets created. If you create negative momentum, it will work against you. If you begin to think negative thoughts about your desired outcome, it will begin to feel like stress. When it feels like stress, you won’t feel like taking action. That’s why appreciation is so vital- it will always help you feel good about your goal making the inspired action feel effortless.

“Change your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly.” – Tony Robbins

4. Letting it go

Overthinking kills momentum faster than anything. Give yourself a reprieve; life is about so much more than your goal anyway. Letting the subject go will bring a freshness to it in return. You avoid burnout and best of all create a more fulfilling life in other areas. Guiding your mind toward completely unrelated subjects will reset and refill your mental facilities.

Give yourself peace to find the clarity necessary to make the ideal decisions. This can come in the form of working out, taking a walk, going somewhere new, or anything that stimulates a different part of you!

Part of letting it go means keeping your ideas to yourself until they are solid in your mind. This allows them to stay clean from outside influence. Let go of the need to share your ideas before the momentum is powerful. The last component is taking each action in faith that you are on the way to your desire. Because what you are seeking, is also seeking you.

What are some things you do to create momentum in your life? Share with us below!